Celebrating Jon Lord The Royal Albert Hall 4th April 2014
I am sitting on the 07.00 train from Kings Cross to Newcastle as I write this. Last night I spent the evening with a group of musicians, from the worlds of both classical and rock, and fans who had travelled from around the globe to celebrate the music of Jon Lord. The event was held in the majestic Royal Albert Hall, a venue in which Lord performed many times, and where he premiered his concerto for group and orchestra with Deep Purple some 45 years ago.
As we arrived in the hall, we were greeted by two large video screens on either side of the stage, showing images of Jon. I had a seat on the arena floor, a few rows from the front, to the left of stage centre. A great view.
The evening had been organised by The Sunflower Jam on behalf of the Jon Lord Fellowship for cancer research. The Sunflower Jam is a charity led by Jacky Paice (wife of Ian Paice and twin sister of Jon Lord’s wife Vicky Lord), which organises annual events at the Albert Hall.
The event started promptly at the advertised time of 19.30 with our host Bob Harris welcoming us and introducing the concert. This was an evening of music, celebration and emotion, which started with Ian Paice accompanying his sister-in-law Vicky Lord on stage, for Vicky to say a few words about Jon. The first half of the concert was devoted to Lord’s solo and orchestral compositions and featured the Orion Orchestra conducted by Paul Mann, and our house band of the evening of Murray Gould, Neil Murray, Jerry Brown, Paul Wichens and Nigel Hopkins. The first piece was “Durham Awakes” from the “Durham Concerto” featuring Kathryn Tickell on Northumbrian pipes. This was followed by Steve Balsamo on vocals and Anna Phoebe on violin accompanied by Mickey Moody on guitar, performing “All Those Years”. 
Then Miller Anderson gave a moving reading of “Pictured Within”. This was followed by Rick Wakeman leading the band in music from “Sarabande” and Margo Buchanan singing “One From The Meadow”. Finally, the first half of the concert closed with Jeremy Irons elegant reading of Thomas Hardy’s “Afterwards”, accompanied by Paul Mann on piano. There was a lot of material that I wasn’t familiar with in the first half of the show; it was good to experience something new and different, performed perfectly and beautifully by a group of musicians who were all there to celebrate the diversity of Jon Lord’s compositions. Bob Harris returned and told us that after the interval “we are going to rock” 🙂 It was 20.45.
The second part of the evening started at 21.10 with Joe Brown, ever the cheeky cockney, who entertained us with a few quips and then introduced Paul Weller. Mod Weller took us back to the ’60s performing two tracks from Jon’s first band The Artwoods. These were fine slabs of Motownish white soul R’n’B: “Things Get Better” and “I Take What I Want”. Great stuff.
Next we were treated to a couple of Paice, Ashton and Lord songs “Silas & Jerome” and “I’m Gonna Stop Drinking” led by the amazing vocalist Phil Campbell, and great blues guitar of Bernie Marsden. Phil is a relatively new vocalist from Scotland and is straight out of the mould of Rod Stewart/Joe Cocker/Chris Robinson. Just perfect wild raucous singing and the right amount of rock’n’roll swagger. Check him out. The high point of the evening (so far). Steve Balsamo and Sandi Thom then performed a beautiful version of the haunting classic “Soldier of Fortune”.
Nothing could have prepared any of us for what came next, which was an amazing performance by Bruce Dickinson and particularly Glen Hughes. They started with “You Keep On Moving”, which was great enough, but then they took the roof of the place with an incendiary version of “Burn”. Everyone on their feet, the two of them sparring vocally, both out-singing each other with their tremendous outstanding vocal ranges. Sorry for all the superlatives, but it was that good. A hall full of old guys punching the air and rocking. 
Hughes was incredible. It took me back to the time I saw Purple Mk III on the Burn tour. I was struck that night (can it really be 40 years ago?) by Hughes’ over the top performance and his soulful soaring vocals. Last night he was strutting and stalking around the stage, bass aloft, wrestling ever ounce of soul and emotion out of his voice. I have never seen a performance like it; at times he was on his knees, tears running down his cheeks. Yes it was over the top, but you just knew that the guy went out last night determined to deliver the performance of his life, and that he felt and meant every word of it. Electric, and a privilege to experience. Glen Hughes closed this segment of the show with “This Time Around”, which he explained was the only song he wrote with Jon Lord.
Finally it was left to Deep Purple to close the evening, which they did with great style performing a short set of “Uncommon Man”, “Above And Beyond”, “Lazy” (with Bentley Kline on violin sparring with Don Airey on keyboards), the beautiful blues of “When A Blind Man Cries”, the cooking rhythms of “Perfect Strangers” and closing with (what else) a rocking “Black Night” with all of us singing along. Then everyone joined Purple on stage for an encore of “Hush”. Lots of “Nah Nah Nah Nah”s from the stage and the floor. It just doesn’t get much better. For over three and a half hours we were well reminded just how great a musician, composer and man Lord was. RIP Jon Lord.
The Performers
Host: Bob Harris
Deep Purple: Ian Gillan (vocals), Steve Morse (guitar), Ian Paice (drums), Roger Glover (bass), Don Airey (keyboards).
The Orion Orchestra conducted by Paul Mann.
House band: Murray Gould – guitar, Jerry Brown – drums, Neil Murray – bass, Paul Wichens – keyboards, Nigel Hopkins – piano.
Guests: Miller Anderson – vocals, Steve Balsamo – vocals, Joe Brown – jokes and cockney twang, Margo Buchanan – vocals, Phil Campbell – vocals, Bruce Dickinson – vocals, Nick Fyffe – bass, Glenn Hughes – vocals/bass, Bentley Kline – violin, Paul Mann – piano, Bernie Marsden – guitar, tMickey Moody – guitar, Anna Phoebe – violin, Sandi Thom – vocals, Kathryn Tickell – Northumbrian pipes, Rick Wakeman – keyboards, Paul Weller – vocals/guitar
Postscript
It was truly an amazing night. However, I have to say that I came away feeling a few things were missing. First, Blackmore and Coverdale. Now we all knew Blackmore was never going to attend, but some of us lived in a vain hope that past issues might have been forgotten, and that he may have made an appearance. On the other hand, it is of course up to him how he wishes to remember Lord, and his new song in Jon’s memory sees a return to his old style. I understand Coverdale couldn’t make it; again a big miss. I also expected to hear some of the “Concerto”, particularly given the occasion and the venue. A strange omission. And finally I had hoped for “Child in Time”. I know Purple don’t play it any more, but a version by the house band with a guest vocalist might have been possible. Sorry to niggle about what was an incredible event.
The images are all photographed from the concert programme.
5 Apr
Vintagerock's Weblog. 
Posted by Rasmus Heide on April 6, 2014 at 12:31 am
As Big As It Was did not feature on last night’s set. Great review though. 🙂
Posted by vintagerock on April 6, 2014 at 7:18 am
Thanks I will correct my review Just goes to show I should get to know the material better best wishes Peter